Time Marches On

Are you reelin' in the years

Stowin' away the time

Are you gatherin' up the tears

Have you had enough of mine

Steely Dan

57 years ago TODAY these two began a 57-year journey along a road filled with bumps and potholes, yet here we are. MFO’s father and our friend and minister G. Robinson Lapp fired the starting gun.

These people 

joined our caravan along the way, MFO’s sister on the right, and FOJ’s with their lovely wives nearby (reacting to a “look Goofy!” request on our 50^th anniversary celebration in the OBX).

The long and winding road that lead me to this door was

filled with friends, family, and people who care a lot about us.  We were blessed by Chefs who made things I can only wish for.   Some had achieved Three Star Michelin status, people with more talent and love of food that I can imagine.  Thank God they’re in our sphere once in a while.

Would we follow the same path again?  Who knows? as we near the Stop Sign at the end of the journey, I wouldn’t trade it.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me

Other times I can barely see

Lately it occurs to me

What a long strange trip it's been

Grateful Dead

Bon Appetit, my friends.   
thank you for all the well wishes

Phases and .... rants

Kind of an odd juxtaposition, but wanted to get rid of two birds with one post.

First Bird, serious…sort of.

Seem to be blitzing social media today, but 56 years ago today, Bill Moody and Carol Otto got married, in the chapel at Michigan State University.  Presided over by our long-time friend, the Rev. Robb Lapp.  Both sets of our parents were there (and no longer here), Jackie and Moody (as he was known), Dorothy and Louis (known as Ham) and our good friends Roger Brown and Ed Henry.   Was kind of a low key affair, matching the participants.

It’s interesting that as the years go by, anniversaries and birthdays seem to gather more importance.  Maybe as we age, the fact that another of these milestones is reached, it affirms the fact we’re still alive, and survived another year together.

We’re planning on “celebrating” with friends tonight over good food at the Ale House on St. George island.  It’s what I do best!

Second bird(s)

emptying the rant tank in no particular order.  Being quite restricted in mobility a lot have to do with television and sports (No Pictures, no pictures)!

The insurance wars

If you watch almost any TV, you can’t escape seeing incessant commercials from insurance companies.  The big five include Geico, Progessive, State Farm, Allstate, and lately Liberty Mutual, pretty much in that order of frequency.  Thumbnail reviews and comments:

Geico by far out strips the other with the Gecko, but come up with creative situations and interesting comments.  Although I do struggle a bit with “help with renter’s insurance” from the episode where the guy has a miniature horse but treats it as a dog.  They are offering to “help” you if you give them money, how does that help.

Progressive puts their stock in “Flo” (Stephany Courtney), inexplicably dressed in a white smock, but always in some rather odd situation.  Lately they have taken a position of disrespecting “parents”.   “oh, you bought a house, one more step in becoming your parents” and often said parents portrayed in plaid shirts and corduroys being a general fuddy duddy.  I’m not sure of the strategic reason for selling insurance with that. With all due respect, I wouldn’t mind turning out like my father.

State Farm mostly features Dennis Haysbert, extremely earnest and the famous “you’re in good hands” line

Allstate is now ballyhooing the “Don’t mess with my discount” inanity, whereby people are trying for a discount with “Safe driving”.  “mommy I have to go potty!  I do too honey but we’re going to hold it longer for my discount” or lady in car  in obvious labor, refusing to go faster as hubby recommends: “DON’T MESS WITH MY DISCOUNT!!”

Liberty Mutual has employed an Emu.  Just weird

What’s the weather?

Our friend the Weather Channel foaming at the mouth ready to bring you their usual documentation of Dorian disasters and destructions, Right?

Forty Love

 The US Open Tennis Tournament presses on!  It poses Chrissie Evert with a new problem.  Her undying devotion and worship of Serena is now being challenged by young CoCo Gauff, the new darling of media.  John McEnroe is warning of “too much too soon” for the 15-year-old.  Without getting myself in hot water about women’s tennis - Quick! Name the major male tennis players today.  Easy, right?  Joker, Raffa, and Roger.  Boom!  Now, name the three major female tennis players today.  Serena, um, serena, and well, serena.  No challenges for her quest for major victories..  Possiblilites like Halep crumble, maybe some of the younger Americans (CoCo, Sloane, Keys) might eventually, but right new she (mostly) just mows down qualifiers.

Good Grief (may not be suitable for all audiences) 

Listening to late night sports talk shows as I do (already predicting who’s in the Super Bowl, for God’s sake).   There are increasing commercials for a product to be used in “manscaping”.  Use your imagination, I’m not going further

Upcoming: reviews of the lowly chicken sandwich

Meanwhile,

DFD for the anniversary gathering and

I won’t have to worry about MJ at the Ale House.  More civilized

coming up for air

Well,  you may have noticed that the Bottom Feeder has been dark for a period of time.   You may have wondered where the Feeder went, and may have even looked in things like:

So I’m happy to report you won’t find him there either, nor would you find him in the patient log of Johns Hopkins Hospital.   No, there is a much happier explanation which recently concluded with

with FOJTY leaving in his “mint chip” rent-a-racer

And a few days later the traditional salute from FOJTE as he departs for DCA and a trip back to reality

Both sons were so gracious as to spend some of their time coming out here and seeing us and doing the long list of chores that were generated by MFO and myself.  Part of which turned into a “Staining the Fence” operation which turned out to be much more work than planned, but it does look nice.  Also both are accomplished grill masters and we were able to have several good meals thereby, with local beef.   We also had a special treat when a friend obtained some dry aged strip steaks

And came and grilled it for us.  Over used term, but actually was some of the best stuff I’ve ever put in my mouth.  What a treat!

Having them visit tugged at our heart strings, and thoughts of “moving back” have begun creeping in our brains, but that’s a whole different story.

Well, if your memory is really sharp you may remember I was yakking about Objective A or something which got shoved into the background.  Although not quite as glorious as family visits, it does keep rearing its head.

As I spend a lot of time pushing words around I pay attention to popular usage, and current trends.   I personally try to say what is on my mind, being as literal as possible. Just say what you mean!  For instance, there are phrases creeping in that drive me nuts.   Here are but a few that particularly drive me nuts:

Me:   Hey (so and so) could you talk to (so and so) and ask about..

Millennial:  why, yes, I would be glad to reach out to them.

Me: don’t reach, just talk

Me: so how did the event go?  Did you make some money? Or how did you do on your exam?

Millennial:   I crushed it!!

Me:  I’m sorry to hear that, were there any injuries?  Were you arrested for damage of property?

Me: what are the objectives for the next ?

Mill: we’re taking it to the next level!

Me:   Huh? Where are those levels written down?

Me: How are the new rules of procedure for the meetings working out?

Mill:  they’re a real game changer!

Me:  oh, I thought we were doing rules for procedures.  Are we doing something different now?

Me:  Could you tell me what (so and so) said?

Mill: sure, I would be glad to share it.

Me: great, but could you just tell me?

And lastly (for now) one from the world of sports, usually in reference to a football running back:  “he just gets stronger as the game goes along!”  Huh?  How is that physically possible?

Now, I should hasten to add that several of the loyal readers sometimes use these phrases, but i think that's largely because of the reality they operate in.  

Anyway, just say what you mean, don’t add frills!  It could be a game changer for you!

And really lastly, I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but I lost respect for the USA women’s soccer team in the world cup.  I know others won’t share the same opinion and accuse me of being “soft” or “fuzzy”.   I was very embarrassed for Thailand’s when our players jumped around, hugged each other, and carried on after scoring the 13^th goal on an obviously vastly overmatched team.

I think they toned it down a bit lately, for which I give them credit.  Soccer is a funny sport in a lot of respects, but I kind of hate to see games swing in the balance of one official’s subjective view of play.  VAR helps, but when you see goals (and games!) taken away because “her heel was just an inch away from the line”.  And the only reason USA (USA…USA…USA) won yesterday was because they were awarded two penalty kicks.  No clean goals.  LeBron always gets the calls!

Okay, the Feeder should be back on the proverbial horse now, ready to go to the next level!

And a huge thank you to both FOJ’s for helping us out.  We certainly will do everything we can to remain in the digs and my continual reminder to
DFD

And NMMJ

Ps a subject for future posting was a wine dinner at Elements, and a dinner at CD cafe

Projects and Pigskins.

Well, this may land me in divorce court, or at a minimum a counseling session, but just something I thought I might want to share.

You know how one little simple thing can lead to a massive project of some sort?  Well that sort of happened to me.  As you know (or should), I am active on several civic organizations around here, sit on boards and stuff like that.  Well, the other day, I thought “well, I need to look at that budget again” and I know just where it is.  So, I reached out to put my hands on it and…… nowhere to be seen!   Has that ever happened to you?

So before we proceed further, (and this may be the start of legal proceedings or at least “Exhibit A”),We have a “loft” where we keep our “office” stuff near the computers.  And, although this is kind of like looking in somebody’s underwear drawer, here was the state of things when I went to “just pick up the (mythical) piece of paper”

.

A nice tidy work area surrounding the computer, with the well organized filing system along the far wall

Well after a half hour of cursing and going through each of the stacks, never finding what I wanted, 

I decided something had to be done about this. Off to the races! And so i developed a plan whereby I would go through the whole damn table sheet by sheet, and put things into “subject” bins, which then turned the many stacks into more stacks with the little 3x5 card for “X board”; “Y events” and so on

Although it was a bit of a shuffle, I did reduce the "filing wall" to a relatively clean state

That is the current state this (Sunday) morning, what I estimated taking an hour or so mushroomed into half a day.  At least while I was doing “what the heck is this piece of paper” with dates uncovered as far back as 2008.  while considering the history, I did have this to look out on

Isn’t this riveting reading?    

So next step will be to organize each pile and come up with a storage system (hanging files? Notebooks? Anything but more stacks). 

And while I’m showing you the underside of the Feeder’s existence, I know you must have thought from time to time:  “I wonder where the Feeder creates those brilliant, insightful, and informative pieces on food and culture?.  Must be a glorious setting.  Well, here it is, across from the Desktop station

Strewn about with reference material

(Wine advocate, Showtime Deli Menu, one of my magazines)

And before we leave the reference department just to show you I do have some shred of organization (soon to be more) here are my Travel Files

In which reside menus, tasting notes, diaries, brochures and so forth from our many adventures..

I’ll consider Phase I of the project complete. More to come.

Change of subject to:

 “Suuuuuuperrrrr Sunnnnnnndaaaay!”

Well today is the clash of the final two professional football teams in what has become an American Cultural Phenomenon, the Super Bowl.  It is also the 50^th (!!!) edition and is sometimes referred to as “Super Bowl L”.  It does have maybe more than routine interest in that it brings the wily old veteran Peyton Manning on probably his last rodeo, against the young, brash, and frankly engaging Cam Newton. I’m sure you could launch on many story lines and metaphors, but I won’t.  Probably out of an “old guy” perspective I would like to see Peyton go out on with a ring but I am afraid it won’t happen.

Most of the friends we used to gather with for the game are now in far flung places, so it will be only MFO and myself for the game.  Given the amount of work required I did not make my (famous) Remoulade, nor Gumbo, nor Jambalaya.   Hard to do for just the two of us.  MFO is, making her (famous) stuffed mushroom caps, we got a Kaukauna cheese log (which fits the Super Bowl snack rule of they HAVE to be orange) which is kind of sleazy good, I’ll steam up some shrimp, maybe some cashews, and perhaps some sleazy Fritos Bean dip straight from the can.  Wallow in it… no seven layer dip here!.   As for beverages, it is definitely DWTHYL time.  Beer, whisky, wine, soda, whatever..  and at least the game kicks off at 6:30 so one has a chance to last.   As kind of an aside,  I HAVE NOT done any sneak peeking at commercials.

Although it was mostly driven by apathy and sloth, we did go to Giant this morning for weekly needs, not necessarily party food.  We were kind of fearful of crowds, but maybe that was yesterday as we found it busy, but not jammed.  We did see, however the results of yesterday’s (?) shopping both in the “healthy” department

And in the snacking aisle

Where I see some considerate shopper left their Pringles for somebody else to deal with.

Okay, we’re going to journey out for a pre-game brunch so I’ll cease with the usual admonishment to

DFD

And enjoy the game, or the people, or the commercials, or the food, or all.   Big thing is to enjoy!

Will maybe show some of our snacking stuff tomorrow.. Go BRONCO's

FOJ's left us...

Well, you may remember that when FOJTE left earlier this month, we had a nice photo of a hand wave as they departed the digs for home.  Well “TY” and entourage departed today, but in order to develop a similar shot I would have had to have artificial lighting.  A 0350 call time resulted in a 0445 launch, and it was quite dark.  And, they were going to “drive it” as part of their party included our “granddog” Stanley, a Wire Haired Pointing Griffon (no less). I’ve remarked about him before, and he enjoyed his stay in our digs.  He particularly liked being in the pool.

We of course are not accustomed to having a four legged guest, but it worked out well.  Small art objects were secured, and others as necessary.  “Hey!  Where’s my hat?" only to see a gray beast trotting away with it in his mouth.   Then of course there ensued a game which he greatly enjoyed as to retrieving said chapeau.  Their mission in life is to point out game or water birds and then retrieve same.  Stanley is working on that role, but the last phase is tough, that of actually giving up what you just retrieved. .  FOJTY and wife have “shown” the dog in various shows around (not the Westminster…yet) and Stanley has garnered enough points to earn the rank of “Champion”.   We don’t much understand it, but it is fun seeing pictures of our lanky six foot three son in a suit (!) parading Stanley around.

That particular breed of dog is relatively unknown, but some friends here have Lillie, who in fact came from the same breeder in Texas.  So they invited Stanley out to visit Lillie, and oh by the way, the parents could tag along if they wished.  So we drove over to their property in Calvert County on a spacious farm so the dogs could meet.  As I grew up, I never had a dog or any pet past a parakeet and goldfish, and generally was somewhat “cautious” around dogs, especially larger active ones.  FOJTY had no worries and of course it all worked out wonderfully.  They met up and immediately (personification here) became friends (Stanley is at the top of the image)

But what was really neat was how they played with each other..  Great fun (PS a Feeder First trying to upload a video.  Hope it worked - it's worth it)  Griffs at play!!

Anyway we were sorry to see them all head off into the breaking dawn this morning.  Kind of quiet around here, but I do know where my hat is!

Other stuff

Well, the world of wine never changes.  For my Father’s day, MFO gave me a lovely gift of two bottles of the big boy Cab from Silver Oak.   One bottle each of the 2005 and 2010 vintage.   We (lovingly) consumed the first during FOJTE’s visit, and the other is resting comfortably in my newly organized wine cellar (thank you FOJTE and wife!).  Since wineries can now ship to Maryland, we get “opportunity” notices regularly from the Silver Oak folks, notifying us of “deals”.    For instance, the other day we got notice of the release day party for the  2011 Alexander Valley Cab, on 1 August.  Of course price is not mentioned, if you have to ask…. Etc.  Anyway, a little pamphlet came with the invite that contained “Tasting Notes” for the 2011 vintage.  Now don’t get me wrong, Silver Oak generally produces an EXCELLENT wine, but no, they have get in some wine speak.  I won’t bore you with the whole paragraph (!) of at least 100 words but some excerpts (underlines mine for a tinge of originality):

“..has a bright ruby red color with purple undertones….The nose exudes aromas of black cherry, cedar, and black olives…On the palate, it’s dried herbs, cocoa and lavender flavors are framed by dusty tannins and a savory texture.. finishes with lively acidity and a lingering persistence”

Gimme a break!! that description could apply to most any Cab you run across.  And by the way, is there such a thing as “fleeting persistence”?  and on top of that the Robert Parker vintage chart gives the 2011 California North Coast Cabernet vintage an overall rating of 78!!  For him, that’s pretty dismissive.  Pre release prices not included, but generally they sell for $80 - $100 per bottle.  A quick look at my older Wine Advocates couldn’t come up with a specific review and rating, but I image it is there someplace.  Sorry, can’t make the party..

Are you kidding me?

A Facebook friend of mine is somehow addicted to “sharing” articles he runs across.  We’re talking (I am not making this up) hundreds of articles per day.  I generally scan the timeline for anything that catches my eye.  One such entry did the other day, something about a “secret menu” at McDonalds.  What a hoax I thought.   Well maybe not.  If you’re interested just goodle “McDonalds Secret Menu” and your screen will fill up.  and not just from odd sites either.   Besides “Hack the menu dot com” there was an article from the New York post who generally don’t go in for hoax stuff.  If you’re curious you can look at their piece here.   Most of the stuff I wouldn’t want to attempt to actually eat, but it is a fascinating thought.   Also referenced are “secret menus” at places like Panera.  Not time to delve further this time..

guess you could secretly

DFD